If there was any doubt that Android could be a serious business platform, ThinkFree, Inc. may have diminished some of that doubt with their announcement today that they are bringing mobile office applications to Android with their office productivity suite. ThinkFree Mobile will include ThinkFree Write for word processing, ThinkFree Calc for spreadsheets and ThinkFree Show for presentations – all of which are compatible with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. ThinkFree Mobile is also fully compatible with ThinkFree Online, their online service for document syncing and sharing.

Kerry McGuire, Director of Software Alliances at ARM, says: “ThinkFree Mobile for Android is bringing a new level of choice to smartphones by offering a mobile office solution that satisfies the growing demand for mobility and 24/7 access to your documents. ThinkFree has brought an innovative approach to the mobile office suite that enables a consistent office experience across both smartphones and netbooks. We are pleased to have their continued support as part of the ARM community.”

As a bonus, ThinkFree also offers 1GB of free online document storage, promising reliability and security. If you happen to be at the upcoming COMPUTEX trade show in Taipei, Taiwan from June 2 – 6, you can drop in on ThinkFree for a demonstration. It’s exciting to know that your Android-powered phone will be able to do some serious business!

How much is a year worth for having an Android-powered HTC Dream or Magic with Rogers in Canada? Try a cool $300 CAD – that’s the difference between a two or three year contract. On June 2, when these two new handsets are ready to roll out at Best Buy (and other fine retailers), you can allegedly have your Dream or Magic for as low as $149.99 CAD (!) with a whopping 3-year contract and minimum $45 voice and data plan. If you settle for 2 years, the price jumps up to $449.99, 1 year for $499.99, and no contract pricing is available for a mere $599.99 CAD.

If you’re willing to sell your soul (for the 3-year maximum), $149.99 is dirt cheap for getting your little green ‘droid groove going. We hope that the photographic evidence of Best Buy pricing is true, but don’t count on it completely until you are standing in the store and handing over your cash (or plastic). If you live in Canada, will you be venturing to Best Buy to pick up your Dream or Magic? If so, how much lighter will YOUR wallet or purse be?

A promo video of the HTC Hero has been spotted on the web. The closing frames of the video are most interesting, as they show a whole seven different color variations of the Android phone: pale green, white, black, red, yellow, turquoise and pink, all of which look really sweet. According to the source, the phone is running the new “Rosie” GUI and what we can see in the video are some nice features, such as multiple home screens, widgets, accelerometer and Google Maps.

After that funky video, we are now even more impatient for the Hero to come out. Check it out below!

We know we have said this before, but this time it is different, or is it? Engadget Mobile is getting word from U.S. G1 owners that T-Mobile is right now sending out the Android 1.5 OS upgrade OTA. The infamous Cupcake update includes items like a virtual keyboard, support for video capture and playback, better email and messaging capabilities and the use of third party widgets. Because it is being sent out by the carrier over the air, those who are the lazy, sit-back type will have a much easier time getting your handset to digest the sugar, flour and icing. And once you’ve completed upgrading your G1 to the Android 1.5 OS, you can start building up an appetite for Donuts, the 2.0 version of the Android OS. If you did receive a link to upgrade your G1, let us know so that we can move away from the starchy foods.

phoneArena has published a preview of the first Samsung Android phone, the Samsung Galaxy I7500. The handset looks really nice, although a bit similar to the HTC Magic. However, the beautiful AMOLED display and the 5-megapixel camera seem to be really good additions to the otherwise identical Android phone. Unfortunately, at least in the prototype unit, Samsung didn’t change anything in the OS and it is just another Cupcake we all know. Check out the preview here!

Lots of good stuff has been announced at Goggle IO, not the least of which is the Android Developer Challenge 2 (ADC2). Submissions from developers will begin in August and be accepted through the end of the month, the winner will be announced at the end of the Fall, and User Voting will be part of the judging process! Yes, that means that users like YOU can help determine the fate of the Android developers competing in ADC2.

Developers can choose from 10 categories for their application submission:

All applications must work on Android 1.5 Cupcake. First place in each category wins a cool $100,000, and the overall winner gets $150,000. Yep, that means the overall winner gets a grand total of $250,000, not to mention bragging rights. Check out the full details here (http://code.google.com/android/adc/), and good luck!

There has been lots of Android news lately, particularly news of new Android-based phones that are on the way. General Mobile’s DSTL1 Android phone, first uncovered a few months ago at MWC, is rumored to launch next month in both the U.S. and Turkey. It’s a dual-SIM phone on EDGE only, which is a bit of a disappointment, and will sport Android 1.5, Wi-Fi, and cost approximately $550 to $750. Does a dual-SIM Android phone appeal to you, even if it’s EDGE only?

Developers from Canonical unveiled a nifty surprise at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Barcelona on Tuesday – the beginnings of Android applications feeling right at home on the Ubuntu Linux distribution. Although Android uses the Linux kernel, it isn’t so much a Linux platform as it is built on Google’s custom Java runtime, currently making it more suitable for mobile phones and tablets. Read the full story

It seems like everyone wants a piece of a good thing, and given Android’s continuing rise in popularity, Panasonic is another company that is vying to throw their hat in the ring. Keisuke Ishii, board member and director of the Mobile Terminal Business Unit at Panasonic Mobile Communications, said: “The global market for smartphones based on open source platforms including Android will reach 100 million units in three years. We are discussing specific measures to succeed in such a large market.”

Although no specific date or plan was mentioned, Mr. Ishii indicated that Panasonic plans on entering the overseas mobile phone markets, with Android-based handset development in mind, by fiscal year 2010. Competition breeds innovation, so welcome to the party, Panasonic, and we will keep an eye on you!

According to our sister site, phoneArena.com, Sony Ericcson’s Asia-Pacific marketing vice president Peter Ang said that the company has plans of their own for an Android-powered handset. They plan on releasing an Android 2.0 phone in the future, but given there’s no firm date for Android 2.0, we can’t give you a firm date for Sony Ericcson’s phone, either. Take this last bit with a grain of salt in that there is no “official” announcement, but mere rumor and conjecture.

If November 2nd is too long to wait for the previously-mentioned Motorola Heron, maybe you would like to try an HTC Lancaster on for size. The Lancaster’s pricing is unknown, but it’s estimated to be available on AT&T this August 3rd and should be a welcomed Android-powered device to the network.

If the leaked image is accurate, the Lancaster is one sleek and sexy phone bearing no resemblance to the G1. It is expected to have a QWERTY slider keyboard, 2.8” QVGA display (we guess this is a mistake), 1350 mAh battery, quad-band EDGE and 850/1900MHz HSPA, AGPS, a 3MP camera, aGPS, microSD expansion slot, and Bluetooth 2.0. How many of you will be in an AT&T store on August 3rd for this Android-powered beauty?